Broccoli and a Bread Knife

Tonight for dinner we got to use the first "fruits" of our raised garden bed! The plot has been a team effort. We did the construction together, I planted, and Andy built a kick-ass drip irrigation system that's kept the veggies at what I like to call "healthy mutant" size. They're still growing. As of today, the tomatoes are taller than I am-- almost 6'.

I went out there this evening and used a bread knife like a machette to whack some broccoli. hehehe cool. It was certainly grin-inducing to use the broccoli we grew, since it was a big experiment in the first place, and it tasted damn good too.

So, dinner:

*Trader Joe's Bucati (the long thick ones, hollow in the middle). I know, I thought they were called bucatini too. "nope, wrong AiGain," says Rafiki.
Verdict: too doughy.

*Trader Joe's 3 cheese tomato sauce.
Verdict: fine, I tinkered with the seasonings a little bit. It's one of the only TJ's bottled sauces that doesn't come with enormous chunks of garlic in it, which I am incredibly averse to (not sure why, I love garlic). I ripped up a basil leaf from the garden and threw that in there too. Can't wait to start making my own sauce when the tomatoes come in!

*Homegrown broccoli! Steamed to perfection in the microwave. Not the healthiest way, but definitely the easiest.
Verdict: YUM!

* Mango Chicken Snausages from Costco, kindly grilled up by the hubs.
Verdict: Andy loves 'em. I think they're much better grilled than baked or pan-fried...Sadly it's not so easy to mask the flavor of death and abomination, none other than...shhh...cilantro. I kid, I kid. No, not really. Hate.kill.die cilantro. Maybe I'll write a whole post on it sometime. Consider that a threat.

Overall Verdict:
Not my proudest moment. Not great, not bad. I did well using the very few ingredients we have on hand, as we haven't done the massive "post-wedding back-to-life" grocery shopping yet. Mostly I don't really care about the meal itself, but I've very excited to have documented it and can't wait to keep going!

Maybe I should come up with a 1-10 scale if I'm going to be doing these verdicts. Hmm...Thumbs up/down? Paws? Sadly the rotten tomato idea is in use already.